


A Series Of Horrible (APEX) Events

by Vorcha_Girl



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Awkward Romance, Eventual Romance, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Interspecies Romance, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 09:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11734299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vorcha_Girl/pseuds/Vorcha_Girl
Summary: Kandros and Sara have never exactly seen eye to eye, but a series of horrible events at an APEX training conference might just be the push they need to bridge the gap and force them to admit how they really feel about each other.





	A Series Of Horrible (APEX) Events

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CreepyReapers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreepyReapers/gifts).



_A/N - I've been meaning to write a Kandros x Ryder fic, and what better excuse than my buddy Darcey's birthday? Happy (late) Birthday to Stormcallart - thank you for being a great friend and I hope you enjoy your very very silly get together story!_

* * *

 

The _last_ thing Sara felt like doing on her vacation was putting her body through any kind of physical exertion, but somehow - _and she still wasn't exactly sure how_ \- she'd found herself talked into helping Kandros host the Apex training week. It had been a team effort between her brother Scott, Lexi, and Harry. All of whom seemed to feel that she needed a break from her duties as Pathfinder, and that something new to focus on would be “ _beneficial_ ”.

She wasn't sure how helping to train grizzled Apex soldiers classified as a break, and given the look on Kandros' face when Tann informed him of the news, she wasn't sure he did either. But like it or not, the two of them would be partners for the next two weeks, and a good portion of her vacation would be spent doing grueling training exercises.

Sara bit her lip as she thought of the broad shouldered turian. There was something about Kandros which gave her not entirely unpleasant shivers, but he seemed completely disinterested in her. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to avoid her. He barely even looked at her when she was around, aside from the occasional sneaky look from the side of his eyes.

Not that she could blame him.

They hadn’t exactly seen eye to eye after she’d questioned his investigation of Nilken. Sara winced at the memory. She'd since realised that the early days on the Nexus hadn't been smooth sailing, and that she'd been a _little_ hasty in her judgement, but Kandros had been surly and disagreeable ever since.

They argued constantly over the simplest of things; ammunition stockpiles, personnel numbers, even APEX missions. Hell, sometimes Sara suspected that Kandros resented her going on APEX missions with his teams. The few times he'd gone along with her they'd worked great as a team on the battlefield, but they’d bickered like an old married couple off of it. And she’d caught him staring at her more than once, his expression unreadable.

Worst of all, was that she _wanted_ Kandros to like her. She craved his approval and, to some extend, his attention. Which was the only reason she’d let her friends talk her into this stupid training mission in the first place when she could have been enjoying a bubble bath and sipping whiskey.

So here she was, gun in hand, in the middle of a simulated combat situation, with a team of ex-mercenaries behind her. Her three trainees were _not_ up to scratch either, and they seemed to have adopted Kandos' negative opinion of her. They were treating the activity as a kind of joke, and putting in minimal effort. It wasn’t working in their favour though, and Sara hadn’t bothered to bite back her laughter as they were picked off one by one by the opposing team led by kandros.

Using SAM, Sara had been able to pick off his team while staying hidden too. Kandros was harder to track down, but eventually she found him in a building; clearly waiting to snipe her when she crossed into the open. She narrowed her eyes, judging the distance between herself and the open window he crouched under.

"SAM, can I lob a flash grenade through there?"

_Possibly Ryder. But it will mean entering the open to do so, and I am detecting motion sensors nearby. Kandros has set a trap._

_"_ Clever bastard." She tapped a finger against her lips and hefted out a sticky grenade instead. "Maybe I can scare him out."

She tossed the sticky grenade at the window and only just managed to snap back into cover as Kandros popped up and fired off a shot. The pellet whizzed passed and smacked into the wall behind her. Cursing, Sara, fired back, and smiled as she heard him swearing in an equally colourful manner.

A moment later the grenade exploded and Kandros let out a decidedly un-turian like squawk of fright at the unexpected noise. Sara fired at him as he reeled back, framed in the window, and the pellets caught him square in the face. He yelled in rage and pain, and too late she remembered that head shots weren't allowed.

"Oops! Sorry, Kandros," Sara called after him as he vanished from view. She came out from hiding feeling oddly pleased that she'd beaten him.

A moment later he stormed out of the building opposite, his eyes flashing furiously. She started to grin, until he raised his weapon. Sara tried to raise her hands and forestall the inevitable, but he fired and the pellet hit her in the shoulder. The force at the close range shot spun her around and she fell to the ground.

For a moment he looked surprised at himself and looked down at his hands as though shocked. Than his eyes hardened and he slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder and offered her a hand up.

Sara slapped his hand away. "What the hell?" she spat as she got to her feet, flushed and angry. “You shot me!”

"You deserved that!" he growled at her, his dual tone voice tight with rage. "Head shots were out!"

"It was an accident!" Sara shot back.

Kandros scoffed. "Oh, I _bet_."

"Arrogant bastard!"

"Pushy woman!'

They were inches apart, shouting into each others faces. The tension in the air was like nothing she'd ever felt. Frustration pulsed through her, and she was seized by the desire to take his shoulders in his hands and shake him until he stopped being so goddamned high handed with her. For a bizarre moment, she saw his eyes drop to her mouth and had the strangest sensation that he was going to kiss her.

Then the moment passed.

Kandros let out a frustrated whuffling sound and his gaze met hers again. Up close, she saw that his eyes were a beautiful silvery-blue colour, like mercury, and she had a hard time looking away. Not only that, but that intoxicating smell she had come to associate with him, a mix of something like cinnamon and a sharper smell of aftershave, seemed stronger, and it kept distracting her.

Annoyed at herself, she crossed her arms over her chest and stepped back from him. “You’re just annoyed because I beat you,” she muttered.

“What?” He looked affronted. “You didn’t beat me! You _cheated_!”

Sara tossed her hair and holstered her weapon as the the atmosphere between the broke and whatever had been building faded. “It was an accident. You need to learn to let things go instead of overreacting. Shooting me like that was totally uncalled for, and, I have to say, pretty mean, Kandros. It hurt.” She touched her shoulder and winced.

“I … I hurt you?” His mouth fell open as she rubbed the sore spot, and for a moment he looked guilty. “Sara, I-”

He’d never called her anything other than Ryder before, and she found the liked the sound of her name on his tongue. But before she could linger on that thought too much, or on the guilty look in his eyes, the simulation ended, and she turned and walked away.

“Don’t worry about it, Kandros,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ve healed from worse.”

He didn’t call after her, and he was silent for the rest of the afternoon, though she caught him watching her more than once with that distracted look on his face. Neither of them said anything about their fight to each other, but that little moment between them had left her feeling strange, and if she wasn’t very much mistaken, it had unsettled him too.

* * *

 

The second day of the training started even worse, if that was possible, than the first. The delivery courier who brought them their coffee, a young salarian, mixed up their orders and accidentally got Ryder and Kandros' coffee confused. They discovered for themselves exactly how terrible mixing levo and dextro food could be as they spent the next few hours bent over basins throwing up, both of them finding a kind of camaraderie in cursing the courier's carelessness.

  
"How hard is it," Ryder gasped in between heaves, "to keep coffee separate? Or to mark them levo and dextro? It can't be that hard, can it?"   
  
Kandros groaned furiously. "Not hard at all. He was clearly an idiot. Clearly an ... " he trailed off as another bout of nausea struck and he scrambled for a basin.   
  
They ending up cancelling training that day, and Ryder spent the day curled up in bed instead. It took several hours for her stomach to settle, and by the time night had fallen she was feeling hungry again and the thought of braving Meridian in search of food crossed her mind. When a knock sounded on her rented apartment door, it came as a surprise, and she opened it carefully, not sure what to expect.   
  
" _Kandros_ ?" She blinked in surprise at the turian who stood on the other side, feeling oddly self-conscious in her threadbare tank top and sweatpants. He looked good in his casual Initiative uniform; the colours complimented his fringe.   
  
He cleared his throat awkwardly and brandished some takeout bags. "I, uh, felt bad about what happened yesterday, shooting you and everything, and thought you might be hungry after being sick."  The bags bore the logo of a noodle bar which had recently opened on Meridian and catered to levo and dextro patrons. He gave her what passed for an embarrassed turian smile. "I promise they labelled all the food clearly so we won't have another repeat of today." 

_Kandros had brought her dinner?!_

Sara stared from him to the bags in shock. Honestly, she’d have been less surprised if the Archon had shown up with champagne and flowers. Still, he did look incredibly cute standing there in his civvies with all that food, and a small smile crept across her face.

"It does smell good," she admitted after a moment and waved him in, wondering if this was a terrible idea. "Come on in."  
  
Her apartment was messy, and she hurried past him to pick up her bra which was lying on top of a pile of discarded clothes near her bed. There wasn't much room, and she directed him towards the couch. Kandros started to unpack the containers on the coffee table while she got some plates and cutlery from the kitchenette.   
  
"I don't have anything exciting for you to drink," she said suddenly, feeling guilty since he'd gone through the trouble of bringing her food. "Will water do?"   
  
"Water is fine." Kandros told her.   
  
Silence fell, and Ryder struggled to think of something to fill it with. Why had be brought her food? They weren't exactly friendly, in fact Kandros always seemed vaguely frustrated with her. She looked up to see him watching her, and he looked away quickly, making a show of shuffling the food around and stacking the discarded container lids.   
  
"I wasn't sure what you liked, so I got a bit of everything," he said into the silence.   
  
Ryder nodded and sat down next to him. "Thanks."   
  
She expected the awkward silence to continue, but to her surprise, Kandros was surprisingly friendly. "Aside from shooting me in the face yesterday, which hurt too, by the way, you did brilliantly in the training exercise. I was dubious about them including you, but I have to admit, it was a good idea."   
  
"Why were you dubious?" She asked as she helped herself to some crispy noodles. Her eyes darkened. "Because I'm a girl?"   
  
Kandros laughed. "What? No!" He made a husky whuffling sound as if she were being hilarious. "Partly it's because you're so young, partly it's because you're a little unpredictable on the battlefield, and partly it’s because I-" he cut himself off and cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable. "It, uh, doesn't matter."   
  
"Because you what … ?" she prompted. "Come on, I'm already young and unpredictable. Why stop now?" Sara grinned.   
  
He looked slightly pained. "It's nothing. I already know what you think of me, I don't want to lower your opinion even further."   
  
"Ha!” She tossed her head back and laughed. "You're still smarting because I thought you locked up Nilken too hastily, aren't you?" She saw Kandros twitch his shoulders, as though ruffled.   
  
"We did the best we could, especially with Tann breathing down our necks and demanding a quick solution to the murder."   
  
She nodded. "I agree. I may have been a little quick to judge, and I probably came across as being really rude, didn't I?" Sara sighed at his incredulous expression. "Yep, I did. I can tell."   
  
"Are you ... _apologising_ ?" He set his food down. "Are you admitting that I was right?"   
  
"I am apologising, but," she held her chopsticks up to forestall him. "I'm not saying you were right. Just that you weren’t _completely_ wrong."   
  
Kandros' mandibles twitched. "Better than nothing,” he agreed, then he leaned back and surveyed her. "All this time," he said softly.   
  
"All this time what?"   
  
He blinked as though surprised that she'd heard him. "I, uh ... I thought you hated me. That you thought I was poor choice to lead Apex. The way you spoke to me when you said Nilken was innocent and that he should go free-"   
  
Sara reached out and touched his forearm. "No, I thought you were a great choice. I'm just not great with people." She grinned disparagingly. "My brother always said I had poor people skills."   
  
"He could be right." Kandros grinned at her outraged expression. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."   
  
"So does that mean you don't hate me either?" she prompted, beginning to wonder.   
  
His eyes widened. "Hate you? Spirits, no! What made you think I hated you?"   
  
"Well, you're not exactly friendly!" Sara ticked off points on her fingers as she made them. "You're always snapping at me, you never give me a chance if I make a mistake, you never look me in the eye when you speak to me, and you leave the room as soon as I walk in half the time!"   
  
"That's because ... ." Kandros looked pained and be put down his noodles. "I mean, I thought you didn't like me, so I was trying to make things easier on you. And, well, I thought it might make me feel differently if I avoided you." He looked uncomfortable and he shifted position on the couch.   
  
She narrowed her eyes. "Wait, what do you mean by _‘feel differently_ ’? How do you feel?"   
  
He cleared his throat awkwardly and avoided her gaze, and Sara’s eyes widened as realisation dawned on her; _Kandros liked her._

  
She leaned forward, seized by a strange kind of excitement. "You don't mean that you ... like me? Like, I mean, _like_ like me?"   
  
Kandros groaned and dragged a hand down his face. "You make it sound so stupid when you say it like that. And it is. You're so much younger than me. And a human. And I tried not to feel this way because I thought you didn't like me. But I can't help it. I like watching you on the battlefield. I like the way you give orders and the way your team admire you. You're a natural leader, and you have this authority which I … _like_ ." He looked like he expected her to be repulsed by him as he waited for her reaction. "Well?"   
  
"Well what?" Sara grinned and leaned back on the couch, enjoying his discomfort. He was cute when he was flustered.   
  
"I've just told you that I find you attractive, aren't you going to say anything?" He grated, throwing down his chopsticks and clicking his mandibles in irritation.   
  
She tucked her hair behind her ears, a fluttery warmth stirring in her belly as a smile crept over her mouth. "What would you like me to say?"   
  
"Something!" Kandros growled. He stood up and began to pace, then whirled to face her. "Anything! Do you feel _anything_ for me? Or _nothing_ ?"   
  
Sara grinned and caught his hands. "How about coffee?"   
  
He went still and stared at her. "What?"   
  
"How about we get coffee? Proper coffee, with no mix ups. And if that works out, we can do dinner. Proper dinner at a real restaurant." She stood up and took his hand properly, linking their fingers. "And if _that_ works out and we still haven’t killed each other, maybe we can try something more _us_ and go shooting at the range, or go head to head in a combat sim or something?"   
  
Kandros' eyes were wide and he curled his hand around hers more securely. "You mean ... you like me too?"   
  
"Sure, when you're not shooting me," she joked. Kandros flushed. "You're cute, and I've always had a thing for men in uniform. So sure, why not give this a try? Honestly, I would have asked you out myself except I was certain you hated me after the whole Nilken thing."   
  
He winced. "I wish I'd just exiled him and been done with it. Then we'd never have been at odds."   
  
She grinned. "Or maybe his wife would have come to me anyway and I would have been extra cranky at you."   
  
"Maybe," he allowed.   
  
Sara flopped back down onto the couch and picked up her noodles again, a happy glow suffusing her body. "You know, I was pretty upset about being volunteered for this whole APEX training thing, but it's turned out really good."   
  
"You can say that again," he joined her on the couch and hesitantly stretched an arm along the couch behind her head. "And to think, all this happened because I shot you and an idiot salarian mixed up our coffee. I was ready to kill him this morning, but I think if I see him again, I'll tip him."   
  
She laughed and leaned her head back against his arm, smiling. "Who've thought we'd get together because of a series of horrible events, huh?"   
  
"Well, to be honest, Sara," and Kandros leaned forward hesitantly and traced her jaw with one talon, his mouth hovering over hers as his blue eyes met her gaze. "Considering it's _you_ , I'm not entirely surprised."   
  
She opened her mouth to make a smart retort, but Kandros kissed her before she could make a sound, and Sara promptly forgot everything she had been about to say. All she knew was that no matter how they might have gotten together - horrible events or coffee mix ups - this was exactly where she wanted to be; in his arms. 

* * *

 

_A/N - I know, I know, I'm lame!  But I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you enjoyed it too! Comments are always welcome! :)_


End file.
